He called again
John McCain called us the other day to proclaim his conservative bona fides. He just telephoned again, and he said this:
On the issue of immigration there is no debate that our borders are broken. There are 12 million people here illegally. I’ve listened and learned. We must secure our borders first and restore trust and confidence in our government. As President, I’ll hire new border patrol guards, build a fence, ask governors to certify that their borders are secure. The two million people who have committed crimes will be deported immediately. No one will be rewarded for illegal behavior. They’ll go the the back of the line, pay fines and learn English. For those already in our country, there will be no special privileges, and we’ll punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. We’ll be humane and compassionate, but we will be firm. It’s a matter of national security.
That darned McCain just keeps calling. We wonder why. Maybe it has something to do with this. We’ll know soon in any event.
February 4th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Jack — I just want to say again that you are my number one voice of sanity in the blogosphere. You are also a great educational source for global economics and finance, but mostly I appreciate you for your clear, big-picture realism and your ability to cut to the chase on every issue you discuss.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I am so sick of that ad running here in San Diego. Note how he only wants to deport the “criminals”, of which he says there are only 2 million. Funny, if they are here taking our jobs, our tax money for services, living under assumed identities or Social Security Numbers; they are all criminals. Even if they were not, they don’t belong here, and should all go home. NOW.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:28 am
What happened? When I came back to the US with my then non-citizen wife after leaving the military in the seventies, my dad had to sign a guarantee that my wife would receive no public assistance. Technically, I was unemployed at that point, so the government wouldn’t even accept my word.
So why exactly is it that people who didn’t even follow the rules are entitled to any consideration?
The legal immigrants who jumped through the hurdles to get here are the ones who are most outraged by this. We aren’t going to deport 12 million people. But there needs to be a price for breaking the law. Those with criminal records or who have committed crimes in this country should be summarily deported. Those whose only offence is being here illegally should be sent to the back of the line – there needs to be some clear and permanent disincentive to cheat.
Lastly, we need to fix legal immigration and allow for temporary workers somehow. It needs to be a net source of revenue to the government and we need to ensure that it does not revert to a back-door self-importation scheme. Employers need to pay enough to discourage hiring immigrants over American citizens – maybe a 50% payroll tax on immigrant labor with confiscatory fines and prison sentences for those who cheat.
February 6th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
John McCain called us the other day to proclaim his conservative bona fides.
Did he say “Read my lips”? Similar tidbits are here, but that bait won’t catch as many fish as it once did.
(In hindsight, there is much in the Thousand Points of Light address that augured the failure of the Bush 41 presidency, but there is also much that led me to support his campaign. Today I wouldn’t support a candidate who gave such a speech. The candidate might get my vote, but not my active support.)
April 10th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
[...] the Big Lie. The Big Lie is that McCain can be trusted on immigration and border security. Dinocrat reports that the McCain campaign called him again and left a recorded message touting the shamnesty [...]